Existing users, 
 SOHO Organizer - 5.6.0integrated productivity suite |
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Feedback Summary:
| Version 5.6.0: | |||||
| Overall Rating: |   (3.7) |
Features: | (3.5) |
Support: | (3.5) |
| Ease of Use: | (3.5) |
Quality / Stability: | (3.5) |
Price: | (3.5) |
Key to Types of Feedback:
Reviews 
Troubleshooting 
Usage Tips 
Developer Notes 
Commentary 
Featured Reviews
FINALLY OKAY!! (I think) - Version: 8.09, 12/1/2009 02:12PM PST
rafaciana
I think SOHO Organizer has finally arrived in a solid, reliable, very helpfully integrated, flawlessly-synchronizable state!! I have been a Personal Organizer heavy user since version 3 and have been stalled on version 4.5 for a long time. It is used to manage my psychiatric practice (all contacts, clinical notes, reports). I have tried every attempted upgrade of SOHO Organizer, all of which were very disappointing, and have regularly followed other's reviews, complaints, and disappointments.
Version 8.09 is what I've been waiting for. It loads quickly, has a very clean and intuitive user interface and integrates well with SOHO Notes, iCal, Address Book, and Mail. I like being able to email from Organizer, the linking capabilities. I tried StickyBrain in the past, found it not intuitive enough and settled on Yojimbo. However, I will probably move to Notes after I have tested the demo bundle a little longer, given the promise of good integration with Organizer, etc. One recent glitch with QuickNotes (froze when trying to save a QuickNote) gives me concern. I am waiting for an email reply from Chronosnet regarding this. My experience with their support was satisfactory the few times I needed it a long time ago; no recent attempts. They are reportedly about to release NoteLife, an iPhone app that syncs with SOHO Notes. Print Essentials seems very powerful and complete and is a very much improved upgrade from Personal Organizer's template-producing element. The most recent version is reportedly a complete upgrade using a different database engine. They state that they sacrificed some group organizer capabilities, but since they were mostly used as a personal product, they chose to go in this direction. I think they finally realized that they needed to do a major change or completely fail.
My impression is that the company is not sensitive to the importance of customer satisfaction and not very business-savvy. They market their products very sparsely. Their presence in Mac journal reviews has generally been almost non-existent. They stopped being at MacWorld Expo about 4 years ago, while Now has been aggressively pushing the beta upgrade of their Now-up-to-Date/ NowContact product (code named "NightHawk"), which was just released as Now X. I tried it: would you believe that it is even much buggier and slower than previous versions of SOHO Organizer? I've looked at DayLite which I found too expensive and geared more for businesses with projects, etc. I was a strong devotee of Act! before moving to Personal Organizer, before Act! stopped supporting the Mac platform. I still pine for it.
I suggest giving SOHO another try and will be following your feedback. The manuals for each of the products in the bundle are very clearly written without being wordy. I think the price is reasonable for the bundle at $100. (Now X is $130 and DayLite is $150 and are both without the other ancillary apps.)
Chronos Organizer - Version: 8.07, 11/2/2009 05:35PM PST
Seagull23
This product is seductive. The idea is great. Unfortunately, the execution is awful. Don't buy Chronos Organizer under any circumstance, no matter how tempting -- over the long run you'll waste time and energy. The product is irredeemably buggy, and the customer service is worse than bad -- it basically doesn't exist.
I bought version 5 years ago. It was buggy, a complaint common among users at the time. I stopped using the product and skipped version 6 because the reviews were so bad. Version 7 got better reviews so I tried it and was reasonably satisfied, although it always felt like the details of the program hadn't been thoroughly thought through.
Version 8 looks better -- for example, you can finally view phone calls and e-mails associated with a particular contact. In theory. In practice, I haven't been able even to save records of phone calls made because of a variety of error messages. Worse, the upgrade wiped out all previous phone records. E-mail to customer service goes unanswered -- and others note that it can go unanswered for weeks. Chronos has no phone, so there's no way to discuss or register displeasure. (They used to have a user forum, but discontinued it because of the incredible volume of complaints.)
I've seen many posts over the years which in effect say: use Chronos if you want, but beware. But my experiences with it is that the product and the company are so disfunctional it's better to avoid them both. Buy or use another product -- you may not get all the features that Chronos claims to offer, but you won't invest in a product that all evidence suggests is never going to be any good, and you won't give money to a company that refuses to even acknowledge its customers.
I bought version 5 years ago. It was buggy, a complaint common among users at the time. I stopped using the product and skipped version 6 because the reviews were so bad. Version 7 got better reviews so I tried it and was reasonably satisfied, although it always felt like the details of the program hadn't been thoroughly thought through.
Version 8 looks better -- for example, you can finally view phone calls and e-mails associated with a particular contact. In theory. In practice, I haven't been able even to save records of phone calls made because of a variety of error messages. Worse, the upgrade wiped out all previous phone records. E-mail to customer service goes unanswered -- and others note that it can go unanswered for weeks. Chronos has no phone, so there's no way to discuss or register displeasure. (They used to have a user forum, but discontinued it because of the incredible volume of complaints.)
I've seen many posts over the years which in effect say: use Chronos if you want, but beware. But my experiences with it is that the product and the company are so disfunctional it's better to avoid them both. Buy or use another product -- you may not get all the features that Chronos claims to offer, but you won't invest in a product that all evidence suggests is never going to be any good, and you won't give money to a company that refuses to even acknowledge its customers.
8.07 improves on previous versions, but... - Version: 8.07, 10/27/2009 10:37PM PST
Charles.Hadley
(posted to soho "support" site Oct 28, 2009)
organizer (incl notes) version 8.07 seems to work better than previous versions - the worst bugs I had identified (incl data loss in organizer calendar syncing and editing note titles in notes) seem to have been resolved. Grab to notes function is still very erratic and organizer is still catastrophically slow however (much worse than notes). also, of course, no sign of notelife, five weeks after it was submitted to apple...
organizer (incl notes) version 8.07 seems to work better than previous versions - the worst bugs I had identified (incl data loss in organizer calendar syncing and editing note titles in notes) seem to have been resolved. Grab to notes function is still very erratic and organizer is still catastrophically slow however (much worse than notes). also, of course, no sign of notelife, five weeks after it was submitted to apple...
